Trees of San Diego: Flame Trees, Kurrajongs, and Bottle Trees

Considered by many to be Australia’s most spectacular group of flowering trees, the genus Brachychiton includes a number of beautiful trees that are admirably suited to many California climates. Although it is not a big group, it is a diverse one, including trees native from tropical rainforests to dry deserts. This diversity makes Brachychiton an especially rewarding genus for Southern California, where the four most commonly-grown species, in particular, are valuable and showy trees for not only coastal and inland but also desert landscapes.
What’s a Brachychiton?
The genus Brachychiton (pronounced brak-key-KYE-ton) is a member of the Sterculiaceae, a tropical and subtropical family of mostly trees and shrubs that includes a few important edibles such as cocoa and cola nuts, ornamentals such as Dombeya, and the well-known California native flannel bush (Fremontodendron). All thirty-one species of Brachychiton are evergreen or briefly deciduous trees. All but one is native to Australia; twenty-nine are endemic there. In Australia, they are native to tropical and subtropical northern and eastern regions in climates ranging from moist coastal forests to dry inland areas. Their div...